Welcome to Unexplained Extra, with me, Richard McLean Smith.

For the weeks in between episodes, we look at the stories that for one reason or other

didn't make it into the show.

In last week's episode, from eternity to here, we ventured into Egypt's Valley of the

Kings, where in 1922, a team led by Howard Carter and George Herbert, the fifth Earl

of Canavan, uncovered the final resting place of the long-forgotten Pharaoh Tutank Armune.

The apparent fatal consequences of their extraordinary find led many to suspect their disturbing

of the sacred tomb, and in some way released a curse on any who dared to come near it.

Though there is little way of ever knowing the truth of such a claim, what is little

in doubt was the impact that Carter's and Canavan's rediscovery had on the public imagination.

The find made Carter and Canavan overnight celebrities, and with it, a kind of Egyptomania

took hold, influencing everything from architecture and fashion to literature and cinema.

It perhaps less expected consequence was the spike in the number of people, suddenly

claiming to be the reincarnated spirits of ancient Egyptians.

With spiritualism proving especially popular in the 20s and 30s, so too was the practice

of supposed past life regression, with no end of people now claiming to have lived a

previous life as the newly rediscovered Pharaoh Tutank Armune, or perhaps as the more widely

known Pharaoh Ramasees II.

There was one woman, however, who had a rather different story to tell.

Her incredible claim to have once lived before, in a long ago and distant land, was not

only linked to a far more obscure name, but had been claimed long before Carter and

Canavan's find.

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